Man arrested after laughing at local city council meeting

By: Debbie Gross
(Scroll down for video) A man was arrested after what he claimed was just because he laughed during a city council meeting, according to police reports in Georgia.

East Point Police said that a local man was forcibly removed from a city council meeting and arrested for laughing.
“It’s not a crime to laugh,” Dustin Drabot, the detainee, said. “I do not even remember laughing to be honest with you. I smiled and others in the audience laughed. I was in the front row,” he said.

Drabot said the incident began when Mayor Earnestine Pittman left the meeting before it was concluded. The audience laughed because the meeting concluded before it was properly adjourned.

Drabot said Mayor Pro Tem Marcel Reed took over the meeting and said he would ask anyone who laughed to be removed.
“If I did laugh it did not obstruct anything,” he said.

Reed said Drabot was persistently disruptive, jeered and laughed at the meeting.
Drabot said police used excessive force to subdue him.

Police said that Drabot interrupted the meeting, put a hole in a wall and broke the glasses of two officers as he was being arrested.

Drabot said that the allegations are not true and plans to plead not guilty when the case goes to court.